Gov. Brown uses a bedtime story to warn against more spending

California Gov. Jerry Brown returns to his office after a news conference where he released his revised 2016-17 state budget plan Friday, May 13, 2016, in Sacramento, Calif. Brown proposed a $122.2 billion spending plan for California, down slightly from his January proposal after he projected tax revenues falling about $1.9 billion from expectations and a deficit when voter-approved sales and income taxes begin to expire. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press

California’s volatile tax system — and the billions that flow from it — is shifting into low gear. Or to put it Jerry Brown-style, state spending needs to heed the thrifty ant, not the easygoing grasshopper in Aesop’s fable, in preparing a budget next month.

The governor marshaled charts, political history and told-you-so warnings in presenting the latest tax figures that underlie state spending. The numbers are hardly dire with a predicted $4 billion deficit still three years off, but “the surging tide of revenue is beginning to turn,” Brown said.

The governor warmed up the ancient fable about the hardworking ant and the blissed-out grasshopper as a timeless warning about preparing for hard times. A $122 billion budget is due to be completed at the end of June.

It’s a familiar and well-founded message from a frugal state leader. But it’s also a hard-hearted one to many Democratic lawmakers in a state with the most poor people in the nation. Legislators are pressing for programs spanning services for the elderly, child care and early childhood schooling.

One wild card in the financial plans is an existing supertax on the wealthy due to end in two years. It was passed by voters to patch over shortfalls with Brown saying it was temporary. Public unions and health care groups are aiming for a November vote on a 12-year extension with Brown professing neutrality for now.

Since January, Brown has guarded the budget against new spending proposals, saying the state’s tax collections are too volatile to trust. He wants to stick with a voter-endorsed path that builds reserves against lean years, a plan that may put billions out of easy reach for budget planners in the Legislature.

Brown is giving some ground. He endorsed the multiyear phasing in of a $15-per-hour minimum wage. He has also expanded Medi-Cal, which provides health care for low-income residents and doled out more money for public education, though much of that is required by law. He also favors more housing money contingent on quicker approvals and fewer local land-use rules and possibly redirecting mental health funds to homeless housing.

At the center of California’s budget world is its politically popular but unreliable capital gains tax coming from stock and asset sales. The wealthy 1 percent pay nearly half of this levy, a mainstay source of Sacramento’s money, but a Wall Street falloff in stock prices has weakened this tax source.

Brown acknowledged the need for a better system that may include levies on untaxed personal services or on a broader range of California earners. But he showed no willingness to take up an important fight that could ease the state’s ultra-volatile tax flows for himself and future governors. That’s a major disappointment coming from the state’s top political leader, who frequently complains about a lopsided, unpredictable revenue picture.

Brown is right to choose Aesop’s ant over the grasshopper. But the folk tale isn’t enough to run California. A state with serious needs and human realities needs a solid tax system, not just a tightwad chief executive acting on his own.